TEALS at MGX (and on YouTube!)

I talk about the TEALS pilot program at the 2:05 mark. This was shown during Microsoft's annual Global Exchange sales / marketing event.

TEALS is in the classroom!

After a summer of hard work, TEALS is finally in the classroom as of this week. Along with the newly completed Issaquah High School (a cross between MS Research and a Galleria), 4 new MS teachers will be teaching in the brand new labs with our brand new(ish) curriculum we worked on over the summer.
For everyone but me, teacher orientation day itself was new and exciting. I totally forgot how many questions about school and teaching I had just logistics-wise. For me, I forgot how much I missed teaching, even though it was just summer break.

TEALS plows forward (and I have to assign homework to adults)

TEALS is now well into the lesson planning stages. Both the APCS and Web Design classes have a pretty good idea of what the school year will entail. It's funny, made it's a Microsoft thing, but I have to set milestones during the summer so we're all project planned out for "RTM (Release To Market)" when the school year starts. I have the teachers writing up their syllabussesseses and having them try out various projects they will be assigning during the school year.
In other news, I have finished a ThinkWeek paper on the topic, and currently getting it peer reviewed before submitting.

TEALS set to go

TEALS (Technology Education And Literacy in Schools), TechEd has been taken a long long time ago by a worldwide MS conference.

After a couple of informationals at Microsoft attended by around 60 people, we ultimately received 10 applications for four positions to teach at Issaquah High School.

The Advanced Math class did not get enough enrollment to warrant a class, but both AP CS and Web Design had overwhelming responses from the students. So much so that I realized that we might have to go to a college lab assistant model. That's how we ended up with four open positions. Each subject will have a teacher and a lab assistant.

The resume review process was hard to select who we wanted to interview and I felt pretty terrible for having to turn people away from teaching. This will only drive me more into expanding this program down the road. The interview took place on Monday and the four candidates we felt who were best fit for the positions all accepted.

For the next few weeks, I will be getting together with both teaching teams to start on getting text books selected, course laid out etc... I am very excited to work with these four amazing and enthusiastic people who share my passion in technology education.

EduConnect All Star

So it turns out this TEALS thing is starting to take off. I'm rather giddy about it actually. Anyway, got selected as Microsoft EduConnect's All Star. I will also be in a video at MGX (internal MS sales and marketing conference) and doing an EduConnect webcast as well. Hopefully TEALS will get a lot more exposure this way and get some more momentum inside the company and surrounding schools.

I will be conducting interviews with Issaquah High School for the positions next Monday. Very excited, can't wait to see the demo lessons.

TEALS on MSW!

My Technology education and literacy pilot at MS took a very positive step yesterday. We were on MSW, the Microsoft internal website (see pictures below). The turn out was great, and the room was packed. I think we'll get enough interest to start the pilot next year on the right foot. To be continued...

TEALS is underway

In addition to teaching, I realized that I really need to scale myself out. The STEM in education problem will not and can not be solved by me alone. So with that in mind, I started a pilot program at Microsoft in conjunction with the Issaquah school district to bring 3 MS employees to teach part time at Issaquah High School.
The plan is to find one teacher for each of the following classes:
- AP CS
- Web Design
- Linear Algebra
I have to say, it is amazing how much the administration makes a difference. The IHS administrators are the most awesome and open minded bunch of guys and gals I know. It is their willingness and flexibility that makes the pilot program possible. We will have internal MS recruiting sessions in the coming weeks. In addition, IHS has also announced the program to the school community at large. I am very excited to say the least.
Oh TEALS stands for Technology Education and Literacy in Schools. Anything with Tech or Ed has already been taken up by MS's annual conference called TechEd. I still remember one year it was in Boston when I was in grad school and everyone had a TechEd backpack on the T...